H M. (anchovy) reviewed on 10/30/2006 + 296 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 7

This is a fascinating story of one woman's experience with mental institutions. It shows how easy it is to be put away, especially when you are surrounded by problems that can conveniently be blamed on you, but how hard it can be to get any real help.

I've had friends who went through this type of thing when I was a teen, so her discussion of talking up her drug experiences to a therapist (to get attention for something new and draw it away from her other diagnoses) and getting put in rehab when she wasn't an addict, then having the other people there tell her she was just in denial when she didn't have anything to say in her AA meetings rings horribly true...

From her concluding chapter: "I still wonder why I wasn't treated for my depression, why no one noticed I'd been sexually abused, why the doctors didn't seem to believe that I came from a home with physical violence. Why the thing they cared the most about was whether I acted the part of a feminine young lady. The shame is that the effects of depression, sexual abuse, violence: all treatable. But where I stood on the feminine/masculine scale: unchangable. It's who I am."

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